Typical load centers include a metal enclosure having an open face opposite its bottom, wherein an insulative base pan is inserted through the open face and fastened to the bottom. U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,823, issued on Aug. 20, 1985 to Ingram, et al., discloses an extruded insulative base pan mountable within a load center enclosure. FIG. 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,823 illustrates an insulative base pan 14 within an enclosure (box) 12. This arrangement provides a satisfactory assembly for supporting the bus bars, neutral bars and circuit breakers within the metallic enclosure while also electrically insulating these components from the enclosure. The enclosure, being fabricated from a material such as sheet metal, provides a means of ensuring that any fire which may occur within the enclosure is inhibited from spreading to the exterior of the enclosure.
While this type of load center assembly functions adequately, the cost of manufacturing this assembly is relatively high. This can be attributed to the cost of using sheet metal to form the enclosure, the process of forming the sheet metal enclosure, the process of fabricating the separate base pan, an the labor involved in fastening the base pan within the enclosure. Thus, there remains the need for a load center configuration of a design which can reduce one or more of the material cost, the number of steps required to fabricate the load center, and the number of components from which the load center is assembled.